


The Diplomacy of Longing

by onnari



Series: there's a place [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Epistolary, F/M, Long-Distance Relationship, Love Letters, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28510644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onnari/pseuds/onnari
Summary: The Fódlan Historical Society is delighted to have recently acquired one surviving correspondence between the King of Almyra and the Emperor of Adrestia from the year 1190. While the artifacts referenced within this correspondence have not been recovered, the letters themselves remain remarkably intact and provide new insight into the long-discussed relationship of these two rulers. We present it now, for your reading pleasure.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Claude von Riegan
Series: there's a place [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2189541
Comments: 8
Kudos: 48





	The Diplomacy of Longing

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a treat for @artbhu1 on twitter as a part of the Edelclaude Exchange. The prompt was love letters & pining. I hope you enjoy!

To the Most Esteemed Edelgard “El” von Hresvelg, The Regrettably Still Not Retired Emperor of Adrestia,  
  


Last night I dreamed of you again. Of us, out in the courtyard garden, sneaking where we should not go when we had other obligations, but no one the wiser until I made you laugh. You should be more considerate before trying to distract me so. A lord nearly got the better of me in our talks while I was still thinking of us holding each other, dancing to no music at all.

Have I made your heart stutter? I am trying. I know of the former nobles who are vying for your hand without me there. Yes, I have heard of them and that you’ve gone to tea together. Don’t try and pretend like you haven’t. I have my informant, and more than ever I realize I have nothing except my words and mind to keep your affection secured. I will make what use of them I can and keep to only my best behavior here.

For my part, my mind does not let you go. There isn’t a room I haven’t imagined you in yet, walking this palace’s halls, and when I step outside, there you are again, on one of your walks. Sometimes I end up walking the paths I think you’d like best, lost in thought.

The days are long and tedious, but at least they aren’t bloody. My extended family is quiet again, no doubt biding their time. I suspect it may also have something to do with your recent show of support. Your very striking commissioned artwork of me is now on display in the throne hall. I have to avert my eyes every time I enter so I do not grow too conceited, but I do very much like it staring my relatives down. The ornate bows have made their way into the treasury, catching everyone’s eyes in envy.

Military funds are continuing to be diverted for work on the expanded university and improved schooling, especially in the border settlements. I am focusing on rebuilding efforts there twice as hard ahead of Fódlan’s joint summit to redirect any lingering resentment. I’ll cross over and arrive near its end as planned so not to overstep anyone in Leicester. I only mean to come as a representative of Almyra and the good relations between us and our countries.

Do you know? Every day I find myself more thankful for diplomacy—my favorite and only real excuse to see you. I would invent a million more causes for it just to reunite with you.

Now tell me what work you’ve done to inspire me anew and then, just as important, what you’ve done for yourself.

Maha sends her regards. Don’t laugh now or you will hurt her feelings, wyvern or not, and then I’ll have lost my greatest supporter. I swear she asks after you, the way she rumbles at your name. She at least knows I am lovelorn and gives me all the pitying looks my parents do not.

They support a love match, of course. How could they not when that’s what they are? But my mother only says if I want you, I will make it work. My father tells me I’ve accomplished harder things already. Their intentions are clearly good, but it’s not the indulgence I want when I am beside myself, missing you. It is also vexingly easy for them to say when they have never had to spend real time apart. I have to content myself with letters, and I am only so lucky you are the ideal correspondent.

To prove I am as well, I have now read _The Noble’s Follies_ that everyone is clamoring over in Enbarr, and I have enclosed a proper review if you’d like to know my full thoughts or debate the finer details. The short of it is that I have nodded thoughtfully and also laughed, though sometimes at the thin plot and dull prose. But I suppose you liked the, shall we say, didactic and heavy-handed approach. It gets the point across, I’ll give you that much. I’d just rather have words that had a little life to them. They do more to convey emotion, and that’s powerful in its own way.

When I think of you, words still fail me, but you must also know that no one makes me want to succeed more, whether it is in speech or progress or life. To keep dreaming and believe those dreams are possible, no matter how large. You ground me and excite me and leave me without breath. Always, I am hurrying to keep up with you, the destination we’re moving towards a little nearer for your pace.

If you have not had enough of my words by now, I have gone ahead and written you a short poem—in Almyran. If you can decipher this, you can do whatever pleases you when you see me next. I anticipate whatever you may choose.

Think of me in the night. That’s when I miss you the most and can almost believe you are beside me again. I count the days until it is true.

  
Your truest admirer,  
Khalid  
  


-

  
To My Most Shameless Political Neighbor,  
  
  
If I leave you so speechless, I only wonder how long it takes you to write one of these letters. Have you been neglecting your duties just to pen them?

More to the point, do you mean to tell me you feel threatened? My suitors are desperate vipers who know they have lost everything they do not deserve and are all the more intolerable for it. If they think winning my hand will be any advancement in their station in life, they are sorely mistaken, but so long as that is their common objective I am taking my pleasure in tying them up in knots so that they might fight each other. When we go to tea, I make a point that we all go together and say very little so that I might enjoy the vicious overtures that slip out.

Do not complain as I am sure it is a scheme you would agree with if I was not at its center. You could certainly outtalk and outwit them all and sometimes I even amuse myself, wondering how we might make fun of them while still in their company.

Rest assured, no one else has taken and held my hand but you. You do not have to send ironwoods with your ambassador next time in such an obvious and public show of affection. Although I will admit I am eager to see the color they will bring to the public arboretum in the cooler seasons, I implore you to desist. You have embarrassed me enough now in front of all the diplomats with the words you’ve insisted on being declared. You are hereby forbidden to have the scene described to you by any informant, no matter how close. Yes, I am aware it is Lysithea.

Ferdinand and I have been drawing up our own plans on education reform, and I look forward to sharing more soon. Otherwise everything is being pushed aside as summit’s preparation interminably continues. Every day more grievances come forward over the state of greater Fódlan. Merchant routes, land disputes, and the like swim before my eyes. The summit’s end cannot come soon enough so that we might practice our own personal diplomacy.

Bernadetta is venturing further out on her walks and I joined her recently, having an outing on some trails by the coast. A storm caught us by surprise which I wasn’t sorry for, being able to delay some pointless meetings back in the city. We stopped at a small and sleepy tavern where I was able to forget who I was—one of those rare and perfect moments worth living for.

Send my greetings back to Maha. I would never dream of laughing at her. Don’t you know that you are the far better target between the two of you? In regards to your parents, all I can say is I would not have chosen this state of perpetual yearning for anyone else. It is certainly not for the faint-hearted but still it is better to have you like this than not at all.

The fact you are the perfect correspondent is no longer in doubt having torn through your review. Please see my comments on your comments. I will only add here that the point of _The Noble’s Follies_ is not to be great literature, but to be accessible so that more might further their thinking and realize how little need they have of both the nobility and their emperor. But if you worry about passion and art, Dorothea tells me it might even have a portentous run on the stage in the Mittelfrank’s next season.

She also warns that my ardor, of all things, is under consideration for another possible comedy. Tell me if you have any preference for who should play your part, as your public gifts are guaranteed to keep you a major player. You should recall the leading performers from when you were here last. If you think none of them worthy of the role, as I do, you have only yourself to blame for acting so lovesick.

Let me be sentimental now and do not tease me for it like you’ve done before, lest you risk hearing less of the affection I mean to express. I miss you greatly. I often wish to see you at the end of a council table, expressing your thoughts to see where they might challenge mine. In my life, you are the ever expanding horizon, and with you I always see further. You make me want more, even for myself.

Since you have made me a selfish being, know that I expect you to continue to take responsibility, including for yourself. Stop your work the moment it occurs to you and not a moment later or it will be sunup next and you’ll have fallen asleep at your desk again. I cannot abide it if I’m not there to see you to bed properly.

I did as you said and thought of you in the night when I couldn’t sleep myself. Thought of you seeing the same sky and wondered what tale you’d tell me next to explain the stars’ reign. I’ll confess I traced your own likeness in them instead, drawn out here for you to see. Know that I admire and believe in you more than any myth for you are real and doing the hard work of changing the world alongside me.

As for your poem, I have deciphered it and have even tried to give it the poetic touch it deserves in Fódlani. My reward is decided, but of that I will keep you in suspense until next we meet. Let your mind run as freely as your heart.

_I walked, alone_  
_Until I walked far enough_  
_To see that my path_  
_Converged with yours._  
_Now apart,_  
_I choose to walk_  
_Until we converge again_  
_In a new dawn.  
  
_

Yours always,  
El

**Author's Note:**

> Wishing you a brighter 2021.


End file.
